Hen Massig on the Free Palestine censorship campaign against “Zionists”:
At Northwestern University last week, a play that showcases the testimonies of October 7th survivors and victims was meant to be staged. The performance had barely begun when someone pulled the fire alarm. The piercing sound drowned out the voices of the actors onstage. They were speaking the words of the Nova concertgoers, taken verbatim from their testimony, young people who had also been forced to flee when missile sirens cut short the performance they were attending.
The auditorium had to be evacuated. Among the attendees were Abby Polin, the aunt of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Hersh’s grandmother was there, too.
I doubt anyone reading this essay is surprised that Free Palestine protesters disrupted events, and disgraced victims’ memories. This disgusting behavior has become normalized since October 8th, when pro-Hamas rallies were held in cities across the world.
But their desire for censorship extends beyond memorializing victims of the Hamas massacre to representation of any Israelis, at all.
Last week, a queer film festival in Geneva decided not to screen Tell Me Everything, a story about a young boy discovering his father is queer and the evolution of their relationship. Tell Me Everything is Israel’s Oscar contender for this year. As reported by Variety, the queer festival started receiving threats from a Palestinian film festival in Geneva. “They started writing messages like ‘We’re going to boycott your festival’ — boycott, boycott, just boycott,” said one of the queer festival organizers. Both the Palestinian film festival and the queer film festival receive city funds, which brings up the question of whether the censorship is even legal.
Scrambling to satisfy the demands of the potential boycotters, the festival asked filmmaker Moshe Rosenthal to “declare his stance towards the current Israeli government.” He did. He said that he does not support the government, he does not finance the government’s policies, and he does not make films that promote the policies of the Israeli government.
“The cancellation isn’t related to the film itself, but to the desire to avoid controversy just days before the festival’s opening,” said the queer festival’s artistic coordinator in a statement to the press. “Six days [out] from the festival they made the decision they wanted to not get into this kind of heated argument. It was a way of saying we’re all coming together, we need to come together,” said another coordinator.
On October 8, 2023, thousands gathered in New York and Sydney not to mourn, but to celebrate. They cheerfully chanted the mounting death count of a massacre that was ongoing, while Israelis and Jews around the world scrambled to locate kidnapped and murdered loved ones. Three years later, on October 8, 2026, a film festival in Switzerland decided that caving to the mob was the safer option, the one that would allow everyone to “come together.”
It’s almost like they’re not concerned about what these people believe when they ban them: it’s just because they’re Jews. Not the far right in action here, not neo-Nazis. Lovely progressive people. Everyone comes together…except the Jews.
Back at the auditorium at Northwestern University, where someone pulled the fire alarm to stop audience members from hearing October 7th survivor testimony, the show wasn’t over. The police investigated, and when approval was given, hundreds of the attendees returned inside to view the rest of the performance.
It received a standing ovation. Not a planned one, timed to last exactly long enough to break a record and make global headlines. A genuine one, made by people who have been told repeatedly that our pain doesn’t matter. We refuse to disappear.
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